Verse (10 page)

Chapter 42

MRR

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My eyes open.

All I see is white.

MRR

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How did I get here? Where did I go to sleep?

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What time is it? What day is it?

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I’m in a white room, wearing a white robe, lying on a white sheet, on a white bed.

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I feel good, in a way I’ve never felt good before.

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I turn my head for the beeping. It hurts, but I don’t care. It’s novel.

A black screen. With a green line moving across it in a jagged pattern. I’ve seen this before. I’ve been here before. This is a heart monitor.

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Hospital.

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I’m in the hospital.

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In the chair below the heart monitor there’s a refolded newspaper. I reach over and pick it up.

legally dead for fifteen minutes. Thousands of people nationwide have declared themselves followers of Mr. Kadur following the shooting. Many have traveled to Seattle, surrounding the hospital while they await his

I let the paper fall and it drops to the floor.

MRR

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I look down at myself. Wires run from my chest to the heart monitor and tubes run out of my arms.

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I pull off the wires.

MRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I grab a tube and pull on it. The tape tears at my skin and a needle slides out, leaving a drop of blood. I grab the next and pull it out. And the last.

I’m not feeling good any more.

I feel bad.

I breathe in, stabbing pain, and I breathe out, stabbing pain.

I pull aside my robe, revealing white bandages and tape around my chest.

I touch it and there’s a shock of pain.

It subsides slowly and dully.

Sit up, but I can’t. I pull off the sheets. I grab ahold of my left leg with my left hand and the bed with my right hand and shove my legs over the side of the bed.

I push myself slowly off, lowering my feet to the floor. It’s cold.

I push my butt off the bed and put my weight on my legs and they buckle. I fall into a crouch and hang onto the bed and the table next to it.

I push myself up. My legs steady and I let go with my hands. I stagger for the door, grab onto the handle, support myself with it as I pull it open.

Across the hall, the nurse is at her desk, focused on her computer. There’s an exit sign over a stairwell door.

I stagger down the hall, hands pressing against the wall for support. I reach the stairwell door, open it, and go in.

I climb the stairs, my hands on both railings, pulling myself up.

I look at the sign.

9
^th
Floor

12
^th
Floor Roof Access

I lumber up the first flight and to the second. I won’t make it.

Keep going.

One step.

Another.

Tenth floor.

Another step.

Another.

Eleventh floor.

Another.

Twelfth floor finally and I collapse against the door and burst through and the fresh air hits me like a shockwave.

There’s a garden with potted plants and a few patients and nurses, no one looking.

I stagger toward the edge. I reach the railing and fall against it, gasping for breath.

Surrounding the hospital is a crowd of people, thousands of people, many holding signs for me.

Someone sees me and points and shouts and then they’re all screaming and cheering for me.

I am the messiah.

Chapter 43

I stand up, lean into the microphone, and say,

I am—

And there’s a gunshot and I fall. I rewind it and press play. I say,

I am—

And a gunshot. I fall. Rewind.

I am—

Gunshot. Fall. Rewind.

I am—

Gunshot. Pause.

I look at myself. The moment I die. There’s something there. There must be. I lean forward, looking at my face. I lean a little farther. Something different, a change, besides… Closer and my face dissolves into blurriness.

I shake it off and lean back.

I hit play. The bang echoes through the auditorium and I fall back. People are screaming and running toward my dead body. We shake and jitter and run forward too. Washington is screaming into the microphone,

Stay back! Stay back! Everyone stay back!

And there’s another bang.

Someone next to the camera is yelling,

Who did it? Where is he? Where is he?

Cut to a news anchor.

Wow, that was just shocking. In that exclusive clip, Manuel Kadur was shot at Seattle high school Grant. He was declared legally dead for fifteen minutes before being revived by paramedics.

Cut to medics resuscitating me with a defibrillator.

We have a pulse! He’s breathing!

Back to the anchor.

Diane Winters is outside the hospital where Manuel is currently being treated. Diane?

Cut to Winters holding a microphone next to a girl in her twenties in a ski jacket, surrounded by a large crowd.

People around America, largely from the Born Again Christian community, have declared Manuel Kadur Christ reborn. Flocking to Seattle, they have surrounded his hospital, waiting for him to emerge.

It cuts back to the anchor.

We now present the exclusive footage of the would-be assassin as he turns his rifle on himself and takes his own life. Please be advised that this footage is graphic and not suitable for children.

Cut to a wobbly shot, running up toward the balcony of the Grant auditorium.

I hit Stop.

I glance at the clock.

2:01

My show already started, damn. I flip up through the channels.

Traffic on the local news.

slow and go on I-5

The Simpsons.

out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals… except the

The Christian network. John and Pamela Scheffield’s talk show,
Cross Talk
. It just started, at least. Scheffield in a ridiculous blue cowboy suit and Pamela with her huge dyed hair and a sequined outfit. Scheffield talks with a faded Southern accent.

Jesus said, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” After Jesus was baptized, he went into the desert and there he was tempted by Satan. Satan told Jesus he would become the king of the world, if only Jesus would worship Satan, but Jesus refused. Then Satan told Jesus to go to the top of the Temple and fling himself off.

Chapter 44

The door clicks and Iris comes in and I shut the TV off. She looks around the room and then walks in front of the bed and leans against the wall.

“You look like hell,” she says.

“Thanks.” I pull the neck on my robe up a little higher. I get up from the bed and walk to the window, pulling my IV drip stand with me. I put my hands on the sill for support and look out at the crowd surrounding the hospital.

She says, “I don’t understand why all these people believe in you just because of what happened.”

I say, “These people see signs from God in toaster burns on sandwiches. Somebody who’s survived death twice, who’s on television saying he’s the messiah and gets killed and resuscitated—”

“You mean resurrected.”

I say, “Exactly. A sign from God.”

The crowd is milling around, holding signs with my name. Some are in circles praying.

I say, “Maybe I’m still dead. Maybe this is heaven. Everything I wanted is happening. People are paying attention to me. People believe in me.”

She comes to stand beside me and look out the window.

I look at her.

She’s not looking at me as she says, “Is that all you wanted?”

“What do you mean?” My heart monitor beeps faster and I glance at it and back at her and she’s smiling at me and I smile and she leans forward and kisses me.

I pull back in surprise, but then I lean forward to kiss her, but she’s opened her mouth and I sort of miss her lips and I pull back and she laughs and I do too and then we both lean in and kiss for real. I put a hand on her cheek and the other behind her head and we’re still kissing and she rubs my arm and I stroke her hair and it’s great.

We separate and I look at her and she’s looking at me.

I’m weary, so I walk back to my bed and sit on the edge. I push the button for more morphine. Iris turns to face me and glances down at my chest.

Is that what it feels like for girls? I laugh.

Iris says, “What?”

“Nothing. Now I’m sure it’s heaven.”

She smiles.

I cough and I keep coughing, can’t stop.

It finally subsides and I look at her and she’s so concerned. I’m all right, I want to say, but I don’t.

She says, “Are you okay? Do you need a glass of water?”

I say, “Thanks.”

She goes to the bathroom and brings back a wax paper Dixie cup of water and hands it to me. I sip it and she sits down next to me. I set it down on the bedside table and look at her.

She says, “Manuel, I need to tell you, when I saw you fall, when I thought you had died, I can’t tell you what it was like. Everyone was running around, pushing and shoving and yelling, but I got up onto the stage. And you were bleeding and not breathing. And I thought you were gone forever. No, I knew you were gone forever. I knew it. But when I saw you get hit, before I got to the stage, when I saw you fall, the first thing I thought was that I love you.”

“Iris, I…” I can’t say it, can I? “You know I love you too. I think you’re the only person I’ve ever loved in my entire life. And if you mean it, you’re the only person who’s ever loved me. I mean, you’re the only person who knows who I really am and loves me.”

She nods.

“But…” The world is tunneling in on me. “When I told you I loved you that day on the field, I had turned my back on who I am. And before I died I wanted to be your boyfriend or lover or even your husband.” My ears are hot. “But I am the messiah. That’s all I can be. And that means I can’t be with you.”

“But what changed? It’s like you said, you were resuscitated, not resurrected. You said you weren’t the messiah before, Erwin told me.”

“I said that because I found out that I was conceived through artificially insemination. I used to think I was divinely conceived, but I have father, a human father.”

“Yeah of course you do.”

“But now I realize that doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t matter.”

“I mean, God was working through those means. He conceived me and he resurrected me. It was his will.”

“But listen to what you’re saying. It was artificial insemination, you were resurrected by a machine. Who knows, maybe one day people will invent a machine as powerful as God. None of these things are God, they’re just people and technology. So believe in people, not God.”

“I can’t. I do, I believe in both. I stopped believing, because… But maybe dying and coming back purified me of my sins.”

“Sins? What sins?”

“It doesn’t matter now. I can’t turn my back on who I really am any more. I do love you but this is more important than that. I have to make that sacrifice. I have to live up to their faith.”

“But you just said it, I know who you are. You’re not the messiah, there is no messiah. All those people outside, all your followers, they all think they love you. But they don’t. They love who they think you are. It isn’t you.”

“It is me. Maybe they don’t know who I am on the inside like you do, but they know who I have to be. What I have to live up to. And I have a responsibility to them. I have to do what’s right. This is more important than what I want. This is what’s right. When I told them before I wasn’t the messiah, I betrayed them. This is who I am. This is what I have to do. These people, they don’t just believe I’m the messiah. They believe I’m Christ. They mean the same thing, but not really. To them I’m more than just a savior.”

“I don’t get it. What are you saying?”

“I used to think that God spoke to me. Told me that I was the messiah and that I needed to save the world. But then, the last few days, before I got shot, I thought I was just talking to myself.”

“And now?”

“Turns out, I was right the entire time. Both times.”

“What? What are you saying?”

I look back at the window. Thousands of them outside, waiting for me, believing in me.

“I am God,” I say.

Chapter 45

She looks at me and shakes her head and gets up and leaves without saying anything else.

My head is heavy and I lean back on the pillow.

Don’t think about her. But I can’t help it and I’m crying.

Mom comes in. She sees my face and runs over, “Oh my god, are you all right?”

I nod. “I’m okay.”

“What? Are you in pain? Is the morphine not working?”

“It’s okay. It just hurts.”

“Okay, we’re not gonna go to the funeral.”

“No. We’re going.”

“No, not if you’re feeling bad. We shouldn’t be going anyway.”

“We are going.” I say it as strongly as I can.

She sighs and nods. “I’ll go get your wheelchair.”

She goes out and wheels it in.

I pull the blanket off and throw my legs over the side. I push off onto them, holding the side to stay steady and take a step.

“Get in the chair,” she says.

“Let me change first, then I will. You don’t need to wheel me to the bathroom.”

I walk to the bathroom, keeping a hand on the wall, and close the door behind myself.

My suit is hanging on the back of the door. I take off my gown, take a dump, wipe, wash my hands, and brush my teeth. The pants are a struggle, but I get them on. I tuck my shirt in and put the jacket on.

I come out, my tie hanging untied around my neck, and sit in the chair.

Mom ties my tie and wheels me out, down the hall, and to the elevator.

We come out into the lobby and I can see through the glass doors and windows the crowd outside, held back by police sawhorses.

Mom says, “I’m going to get the car, just wait here,” and she goes for the parking garage elevator.

I wheel up to the automatic doors, just in front of the mat. The security guard there looks at me. “You’re him,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Yeah, my mom just went to get the car.”

“Okay, when she gets back, I’ll escort you to it. Just keep your head down, okay?”

I nod.

Mom pulls up in her SUV and gets out.

“That’s her,” I say and the guard comes around and pushes me through the doors.

We get to the car and I climb out of the chair and grab onto the car and pull myself up. Someone yells, “THERE HE IS!” and the crowd erupts into shrieks.

The guard tries to help me, pushing on my back, but makes it worse by mashing me against the side of the seat.

People are coming around the barriers, and they run to the car.

I get into the seat and slam the door shut.

The security guard tries to hold off the crowd. They push on sides of the SUV, shaking it back and forth. Mom is shrieking, “OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!” and she starts up the car, but is only able to inch forward.

We move slowly through the crowd and finally drive off.

I look back at them waving and yelling at me and running after us.

“Are you okay?” Mom says.

I nod. “Yeah.”

We drive in silence, pulling onto the viaduct.

Mom says, “I can’t believe they let you out of the hospital this early.”

“Doctor Ennis wasn’t happy, but what could she do? I promised I’d be back in a few hours.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to his funeral after what he did to you.”

We drive in silence the rest of the way.

We park in the lot behind the funeral home and when Mom pulls the trunk release, I say, “I don’t need the chair.”

“Manuel—”

But I just open the door, go around the side and shut the trunk. She gets out of the car and looks at me. I try not to let the strain show and she nods and comes over and takes my arm and we head for the front, each step sending a shock to my back. I try not to wince.

A couple of camera crews are waiting in front.

“Manuel, why are you coming to your assassin’s funeral?”

“Manuel, have you forgiven him?”

“Manuel—”

I don’t respond, we just go up the stairs and inside, and Mom closes the door behind us.

The funeral director, a man in his sixties or so in an expensive black suit, checks to see if we’re on the guest list and hands us pamphlets.

Inside the viewing room is the coffin, lying open at the front, with an aisle between chairs leading up to it. The room is half-filled, mostly with my followers, Faye, Garrett, and the others, plus a few teachers.

I pull free of Mom and head for the coffin. I reach it and put my hands on the rim for support.

Sydney’s corpse is inside.

They’ve painted and reconstructed his head well enough, you’d never know he shot himself in the face. But he looks wrong. I don’t know what it is, but he looks wrong.

It’s not just the lifelessness. It looks like he was replaced by a slightly different person when he died. Like it’s not Sydney, it’s someone who looked very similar.

I can’t look away from the face. They’ve closed his eyes and given him this calm, serene expression.

I’m crying.

There’s a girl’s sob next to me and I turn.

Faye, looking at me, tears running down her cheeks.

She hugs me and I hold her tight. She sobs again and I hug her tighter.

I’m getting hard, so I pull away from her and she lets me go.

I say quietly to her, “Please tell everyone, meet in the back in five minutes,” and she nods.

I turn and look at the crowd. Mr. Washington is in the back, head down, by himself.

Everyone here is one of my followers or a teacher from school. No other family, no other friends.

I walk down the aisle, passing Erwin, seated near the back.

He notices me and stands up.

I stop and say, “Hey, how are you doing?”

He says, “Okay. Look, Manuel, I’m sorry. About everything.”

I say, “I’m sorry too.”

He hugs me and I squeeze him back.

We separate and I say, “Can you tell everyone, meeting in the other room in five minutes?”

He nods.

I go to the entrance and find the funeral director. I ask him for a
Bible
and he gets me one.

I come back into the viewing room and it’s just a couple of teachers and Mom and Washington talking together in the back.

I into go to the room with the food platters where they’re all gathered. I nod to everyone, then open the
Bible
and find the passage I’m looking for and read it aloud.

For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.

“We’ve lost one of our brothers and whatever you may feel toward him, know that his actions were a part of our path. Mourn him, because he is still our brother.”

They nod and murmur in agreement.

“I’m sorry for what I said and what happened. But Sydney helped prepare us for what’s ahead. He helped me and he helped all of us, because death is necessary for resurrection. I am the messiah, now and forever.”

They all nod. Erwin nods at me.

I say, “Everything’s going to change now. Not just for us, but for each of you individually. I’m not returning to school—”

Kyle interrupts, “Do you want us to drop out of school too?”

“No, stay in school. It’s not my place, but it’s still yours. For now. Some of you are going to feel less important as we get bigger, but it won’t be true. Remember, when you’re part of something larger, it makes you larger. The universe is infinite. That doesn’t make us insignificant, it makes us infinite. Things are going to go exponentially faster now. The more people who join us, the faster the rate will increase. This is the most important thing any of us will ever do. That anyone has ever done. And I believe in all of you. Right now we are progressing on an inevitable series of events. What we do, we must do.”